Moments of Sunfusion.

My professor started screaming. 20 of us sat still, stared in confusion, and waited for her to finish.

“Look! LOOK AT THE BOARD.”

There was nothing there. Well, besides, a chalkboard. Time slowed as we collectively tried to figure out what was going on. Our eyes widened, we thought if we tried to absorb as much as possible things would start to make sense. But, they didn’t. Confusion is like slow motion and you know if things would just speed up some type of conclusion would be reached, some explanation would be found. Every second drips down like a leaking faucet and all that piles up is blank, somber faces and a pool full of meaningless seconds ticking past, leading no where. Which could be beautiful, let’s face it; however, in this instance, all I could conclude was that the world had ended and we were breaking into millions of little pieces. Casual.

“WHAT IS THAT ON THE BOARD?”

In my mind I jumped out of my chair. Knocking it over, kicking the two-person table aside, I bolted forward (the mere 3 or so feet) to look, touch, taste, feel, hear, watch the board. Looking, I saw only bits of chalk. Sharp and jagged, cutting the board–was there a tear in the board? Were we looking into another possible world? As I tasted the board I realized, thankfully, David Lewis wasn’t lurking behind me–my tongue learned of linear algebra, the furthest cosmos, lines from Finnegans Wake, the greek alphabet–and my spine seemed to straighten out as the last bouts of goosebumps settled from off my skin. Dancing around, quaking (or honking) . . . what does the goose say? . . . I understood that something was in the air.

“DO YOU SEE IT COMING FROM OUTSIDE?”

There were massive amounts of glitter falling from the sky. As if we were in some 60’s discotheque in Paris, I looked down and only found leather. Chains and chaps and whips and all of a sudden I woke up in “A Room of My Own” to find briefcases. Briefcases, in this moment, of snow of light of waves of winter.

“IT’S LIKE SOME BIZARRE, OBSCENE ART THAT, AHHHH MY EYES.”

No. Breasts weren’t all angular on the board. There were no bombs. No urinals. Not even some smudged version of a sunset seen at a distance of 3 kilometres. There were no men, no Mary. Not even a signature. My eyes were not burning nor seething. The obscenity she saw lurked behind a cover? a wall? the air? a question?

“LOOK EVERYONE. IT WILL FADE SOON. DON’T WORRY. JUST CLOSE YOUR EYES.”

And everyone’s shut but mine.

The sun–a traveller with a case of wanderlust mixed with ennui–moves about and rarely even shows up. Hiding behind layers of wool, since is freezing this time of year, the sun wallows; the artic blast/vortex/shenanigans is worse in space, ‘tis eternal. So when the sun shows up to the party, I celebrate. I’ll let you all fade away into the walls and the sun and I can have the dance floor. Now that’s art.

Some sunlight strewn across the blackboard? Naw, not art–just a little glimpse of happiness, a moment of being, in between the silences of dull seconds piling up in the  clogged drain of yesterday.